Category Archives: Books

This book covers all the bases starting with the new caller just learning how to call and on through the old hands looking for ways to expand their collection of modules and to learn new tricks on how to use square dance modules to improve their calling skills. It’s all there.

“Dancing for Busy People” is a collection of over 400 dances using easy to teach dance movements. Most dances use only walking movements based on commonly used square dance terminology. Only 25 basics are used. The same basics are used for contra dances, trios, quadrilles, Sicilian circles, mescolanzas and many of the round dance mixers. Some special description of footwork is necessary for the no-partner dances.

When middle-aged couple Reggie and Abbie Bartlett moved to a new town, they found themselves in need of exercise and a little excitement. Intrigued by a classified ad for square dance lessons, they sign up. As they progress from beginners to “official” square dancers, they get much more than they bargained for.

Follow the zany adventures of the couple and their interesting new friends, including one tenacious lady who insists on tackling the male and female parts of the dances, even though she can’t get through one dance without breaking down the square and one cantankerous old codger who enjoys speaking his mind, no matter who he’s insulting.

This is the story of an extraordinary educator who also became a dance leader. As superintendent of the public K-12 Cheyenne Mountain School in Colorado Springs from 1916 to 1951, Lloyd Shaw conducted an experiment in public education that won national attention. After coaching a successful football team for several years, he discontinued the sport and went in search of a safer and more inclusive activity. When he stumbled upon the American square dance, he knew he had found something precious that could occupy his students and enrich the lives of adults as well. He researched this intrinsically American folk art and developed an exhibition team of high school students whose performances during the 1940s revived an interest in square dancing across the nation. But square and folk dancing was only one facet of the Cheyenne School experience. Lloyd Shaw also wanted his students to experience the extended world around them. There were camping trips and expeditions around the state, ski outings before there were any ski resorts, a nature preserve as part of the school campus, a student-owned school cabin up above Seven Falls, and performances of every sort. Much of the story of his life presented here was written by Lloyd Shaw himself and by his wife Dorothy Stott Shaw, who was a respected poet in the Colorado Springs area. It has been edited and completed by their granddaughter, Enid Obee Cocke.

Mrs. Jeeper’s class is visiting Ruby Mountain to learn about nature, and along the way Eddie spots enormous tracks on the dirt trail. He’s sure that the tracks belong to the square-dancing teacher—a large, hairy man resembling Bigfoot. Is he really the legendary beast?